Fun with lots of action, but why didn't they fix the plot problems?

Rating: 7/10 (6 August 2005)

As with so many films in the thriller/science fiction, "The Island" does a great job setting up its premise, but loses credibility when the scriptwriters allow plot discrepancies to get out of hand to the point of absurdity.
SPOILER - SPOILER - SPOILER - SPOILER - SPOILER - SPOILER 1. Mccord gives Lincoln and Jordan his credit card, then tells them not to use it after the first 24 hours because he will have to report it stolen. He dies before they've even left, so presumably he hasn't yet contacted the credit card company. Yet at his death, the card has that status.
2. The Information Services booth has no trouble figuring out from all the people in the U.S. named Tom Lincoln or (Whatever) Jordan exactly which ones the clones are trying to contact.
3. The police car stops in the middle of the intersection for no particular purpose other than to make sure it is in the way of the monster vehicle that will momentarily be barreling down on it.
4. Even though the clones are in L.A., it never occurs to anyone to put Tom Lincoln's residence under surveillance to see if that might be their destination.
5. Somehow Lincoln and Jordan figure out what a taxi is for and how to use one, even to the point of tipping, because there's no indication the driver pulled away angry after dropping them off.
6. No one seems to react to the news that Jordan has left the state in search of her sponsor, when one would expect them to move the whole team across country.
7. A trained Army seal doesn't search an arrestee for weapons before sitting down next to her in a car. Of course, considering Jordan was wearing only a tight tee shirt, it should have been readily apparent she was carrying a gun. Otherwise, where did she get it? I was also bothered by the gratuitous waste of a "valuable product." Surely considering the way they controlled everything else, they could have brainwashed the "breeders" into willingly surrendering their babies rather than killing the mothers after they gave birth. Why wouldn't the original woman want the clone kept around for the same purpose as the other clones in case she needed a spare part? Or what if the couple wanted to have another child? They'd have to wait another year and put up another $5 million. Clearly this scene existed just to give Lincoln something horrible to discover and/or make the corporation seem even more terrible than a smart business would actually be.
Finally, instead of the ridiculous notion that adult human bodies wouldn't seek out sexual activity just because they hadn't been "taught" it exists, wouldn't it have been more credible to program the clones that such activity was terrible and that violations of the "proximity" thing could jeopardize their chance of getting to the Island? Undoubtedly some of these problems exist because of the massive rewriting the script went through since its original incarnation. For example, I got the feeling there was supposed to be a whole lot more behind Jordan's reaction to the little boy mistaking her for his mother, rather than just simply eliminating the question whether Jordan or the mother should survive by announcing the mother was brain dead and couldn't be saved.
Someday perhaps Hollywood will learn the difference between an okay film and a great one is having someone watch the thing with a critical eye so that logic and common sense can be used to identify and eliminate all the "no, that wouldn't happen" moments.